


Set And Match

by chasing_the_sterek



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Apocalypse Of The Damned, BAMF Jeremy, BAMF Michael, Fluff, Gaming, Gay, Gen, Michael and Jeremy kick everyone's asses with their badassery, Mild Angst, Pining, Pining Michael, Post-Canon, Teamwork, anyway, i would die for michael mell, im not even kidding he is my son and i love him, it's only tiny and in the beginning but it's still there, who even cares anymore, why am i writing this???, yanno what imma just tag this as michael/jeremy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 06:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11053173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: "Christine, duck!" Jeremy orders.She manages it, and then calls, "Zombie on your left - twelve o'clock - uh, no, two - wait, four -""Pick a time!" Jeremy says frantically, managing to move forward and slash two zombies in one hit."Christine, on your right!" Rich warns. "Shoot it, shoot it!"///Gaming, giggling, and grenades. For once, everyone is happy.





	Set And Match

**Author's Note:**

> Where is all the fluff for this fandom??? WHY CAN'T MY CHILDREN JUST BE HAPPY
> 
> Also I have fallen hard and fast for this fandom save me

Honestly?

Michael's glad his basement is as big as it is, because otherwise there's no way all eight of them would fit down here. And that his house is empty; the basement may fit all eight of them, but that doesn't mean it's the best place to sit for seventeen hours solid without getting up and walking around, or that it doesn't get hot. He's also glad that nobody questions his parents' absence, because everyone would probably make it into some huge thing and, really, life suits Michael just the way it is.

"Hey, dude, where are your parents?" Rich calls from upstairs, where Jeremy's helping him get drinks.

Never mind.

It probably says a lot that Michael has to think about the answer to that. "Sabbatical, I think."

Rich and Jeremy stumble their way down the stairs, arms laden with a mixture of 90's and modern-day soft drinks and chips. Jeremy doesn't look fazed by the conversation, if anything actually a little bored, but Rich is frowning.

"You _think?"_ Christine echoes, sounding shocked. "How often are they away, Michael?"

Her character dies onscreen. Michael makes a mildly put-out face and manages to last for another minute or two before he, too, succumbs to the zombies. "Most of the time."

"That's terrible -"

Michael rolls his eyes. "No offence, Christine, but what's terrible is our horrific clashing in gaming techniques. Try having a go with Jeremy, his is different to mine."

He smiles at her as he gets up, Jeremy sliding onto his beanbag after him and catching the controller he drops.

"Skills," Jake notes, sounding impressed.

Michael doesn't know what to say to that, really, so he distributes cans of coke before grabbing his own and throwing himself into Jeremy's previous beanbag, which is off to one side and at an angle that isn't ideal for playing but is perfectly fine for watching.

There are so many beanbags down here, now - six more than the original duo, which sit steadfast in their previous positions (in the prime spot for gaming), Michael's on the left and Jeremy's on the right, like always. Jeremy's still has that Sharpie mark from when Michael drew on his face and Jeremy woke up and jolted his arm, and Michael's still has the faint stain where he spilled battery acid all over it trying to fix a broken Wii remote. (It was a sign. He threw it out.) The other beanbags' occupants switch around far more often than Michael and Jeremy do, movies not really needing a change in seating, but everyone has a go at games when the group are in the mood (as they are currently).

"Christine, duck!" Jeremy orders, pulling Michael out of his thoughts.

She manages it, and then calls, "Zombie on your left - twelve o'clock - uh, no, two - wait, four -"

"Pick a time!" Jeremy says frantically, managing to move forward and slash two zombies in one hit.

"Christine, on your right!" Rich warns. "Shoot it, shoot it!"

She's too slow, not helped by five people hollering suggestions at her in the slightest, but Jeremy's character skids past and shoots nine zombies in three seconds so everything's okay.

"Jeremy, seven o'clock, trifold," Michael tells him, and the three undead are quickly slain.

"Thanks," Jeremy says, grinning, and Michael smiles wide and gives him a thumbs up even though he probably can't see it.

Meanwhile, however, another wave has come for poor Christine, who is being told to do drastically different things by all sides, and has run out of bullets for her current cartridge.

"Reload!"

"Which button?" She yells, searching the controller wildly.

 _"B!"_ Jeremy and Michael shout in unison.

She jams her thumb into the button, but it's too late; her character gets bitten and enters the ten-second death stage where you can stumble around and fight woozily as much as you want with half strength.

Jeremy and Christine last, overall, a little longer than in the previous round, but Michael thinks about see the gaps she wasn't quite filling fast enough, if she caught Jeremy's cues at all. He feels guilty for thinking it, but she's not the greatest at games anyway, and her backup skills are pretty poor. His fingers itch for the controller, but this is the group's first foray into Apocalypse Of The Damned and they need to beat the levels under their own power, without Jeremy and Michael hogging everything and doing it all for them.

So he doesn't intend to do anything.

That is, until Chloe says, "What level are you two losers on?" and he makes sheepish eye contact with Jeremy.

"Eighteen," he says.

There's a brief moment of silence. The squad as a whole are on level three and have been for weeks, the game apparently proving much harder than they'd thought.

 _"How,"_ Brooke says.

"I guess we just kind of work well together," Jeremy offers. The two shrug at each other. "Christine, d'you wanna swap with someone, or do I change people?"

"Oh, no," Christine says firmly. "No, no, no."

"Um, what?" Jeremy says, and his confusion is completely well-founded in Michael's opinion.

Jake pipes up from the back. "I wanna watch you two play together!"

"I think I need to see some of this legendary teamwork," Jenna agrees, and, well, that's a challenge if Michael ever heard one.

He shrugs at Jeremy, makes a _why not?_ face, and there's a brief shuffle of seating before Jeremy is in his beanbag, where Christine had been sitting last round, Michael's in his beanbag, where he'd been two rounds ago, and Christine is now sitting where Michael just was.

 _REPLAY LEVEL?_ the screen flashes.

Jeremy selects _YES,_ and the level fades in, a street full of rotting corpses walking in from all sides. Instantly, Michael is running to the wall of the house on the right, swiping the axe off the wall and mowing down zombies on his way back to Jeremy. He throws (see: drops for the other player to pick up) his gun to him, allowing for two guns at once, Jeremy's preferred method of fighting.

"Gun's on the ground, buddy, you're good to go for two hands," Michael says, saluting with his controller in reply to Jeremy's cheer of thanks.

A zombie sneaks up, and before any of the others have even finished their first words of warning it's long gone, Michael having thrown his axe into its face as Jeremy's player ducks.

"How the hell are you doing this so well and barely talking?" Jenna says incredulously. "You're not even looking at each other -"

Someone shushes her, possibly even several people.

And then it's silent, and Michael's character says nothing, because this is a video game with no cheesy one-liners that break out whenever you use a combo move.

"Grenades, grenades!" Jeremy screeches as he reaches his last magazine clip.

"Go, dude, go," Michael says, and Jeremy dives off to the left, where the box of grenades are. He fills his inventory, throws one at the inevitable clump of zombies that have followed him, and replaces that grenades' storage space with another.

Michael, emerging from the (non-existent) smoke like some dramatic avenging angel, joins him, because it makes more sense to fight by your grenade storage than in the middle of an empty street.

They stay there, throwing grenades and bullets and giving a new hole in the face to zombies who come too close. Their characters are actually back-to-back, overlapping so no zombies can rise up from between them. Turning takes precious time they can't spare. Back-to-back is best.

(Plus, it looks badass.)

The third wave comes, and the fourth, and the fifth, and Michael completely destroys all of them with his axe and a couple of grenades he pilfers from Jeremy's storage shed (much to his exclaimed protests), but the sixth and final wave proves to be his downfall, his character collapsing into its iconic pile of bones just over halfway through the surge.

"Michael!" Jeremy screams dramatically. People are laughing, and a smile is pulling the corners of his best friend's lips into a lopsided grin, and Michael can feel his eyes crinkling at the corners from his wide, beaming smile.

"Don't worry about me, go, _go!"_ Michael laughs too, breathless and genuine, and he dumps his controller on the ground before cheering Jeremy on in earnest.

He clings onto his 8-bit life with white knuckles, the controller creaking as he plays, but Jeremy makes it, and the entire basement seems to brighten as everyone cheers, descending upon Jeremy in a dogpile of celebration.

Michael laughs, pulling his phone out to take a photo. He grins at the first one, which is extremely candid, but doesn't have much time to look at it before he feels a hand on his arm. He follows it to see a smirking Jake, who tugs him into range of everyone else's hands by his hoodie sleeve. Before he can even blink, he's half in the middle of the pile, and Jeremy's face is laughing from just a few inches away and wow, he is really gay for this guy.

Michael blinks for a second or two more before descending into the same reaction Jeremy had, allowing himself to bask for just a moment in everyone's joy and enthusiasm and praise over their teamwork.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this is so goddamn short and not-funny but here just take it


End file.
